Many materials such as thermoplastic film, metal foil, and flattened thermoplastic tubing are manufactured in a sheet-like form and in order to form a useful product from the material it is necessary to seal the sheet-like material to itself or to a similar material. If the material is thermoweldable or heat fusible it may be sealed to itself or a similar material by the proper application of energy which raises the temperature of the material to its welding or fusing temperature. Thermoplastic sheets made from materials such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, polyvinylidene chloride, etc. are readily heat sealable or heat weldable; and, in the prior art, sealing or welding has been accomplished by pressing two sheets of thermoplastic film together between heated seal bars, by mechanically pressing the sheet together and applying radio-frequency energy, and by applying heated and compressed air blown through opposed nozzles to seal the material together. In addition to radio frequency energy, other sources of radiant energy have been employed to seal together thermoplastic materials. One such energy source is the laser described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,560,291 which issued on Feb. 2, 1971 to A. J. Foglia et al. The Foglia et al patent shows the bonding of thermoplastic resin films using radiation from a laser source. In another prior art disclosure, the laser welding of plastic tubes is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,117 which issued on Oct. 30, 1973 to William Edmond Bowen et al. An additional application of laser energy to processing thermoplastic materials is a method of forming a tear line in a multi-layer laminate as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,790,744 which issued to William Edmond Bowen on Feb. 5, 1974. However, in all of these prior art methods employing laser energy to seal thermoplastic materials, the energy is applied from one side only of the thermoplastic material with the result that the laser energy is absorbed in the layer of film nearest the source of energy. In this situation, little, if any, energy reaches the other layers of film so that the other layers are not molten and flowable to fuse into a secure seal. Accordingly, it is one object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for depositing equal amounts of energy in layers of film to be welded together.
Another deficiency in the prior art use of laser energy to thermoweld plastic materials is that when sufficient energy is applied to the layer nearest the energy source in order to quickly make a seal, such a deposition of energy will cause the layer to burn. Accordingly, it is another object of the subject invention to provide a method and apparatus by which thermoplastic materials may be sealed together without burning one of the layers.
The accomplishment of the foregoing and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following Summary of the Invention and Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiments.